John Updike Quotes

John Updike
John Updike
American Novelist
Born: Mar 18, 1932
Died: Jan 27, 2009
About Life Like Me Think You
Related authors: Elie Wiesel Ernest Hemingway H. P. Lovecraft Herman Melville James Baldwin Leo Rosten Nathaniel Hawthorne Richard Bach
We are most alive when we're in love. John Updike
Love Alive Most Relatable
What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit. John Updike
Art Space Spirit Offers Room Breathing Certain
Professionalism in art has this difficulty: To be professional is to be dependable, to be dependable is to be predictable, and predictability is esthetically boring - an anti-virtue in a field where we hope to be astonished and startled and at some deep level refreshed. John Updike
Hope Art Refreshed Field Difficulty Astonished Boring Some Dependable Where Predictability Predictable Deep Professional Professionalism Level Startled
Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner. John Updike
Teacher Marriage Every Consist Tends Aristocrat Learner Peasant
To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for a blind, venomous, and ungrateful client. John Updike
Venomous Ungrateful President States Blind Client Advocate Sir Act United United States
In tennis, there is the forehand, the backhand, the overhead smash and the drop volley, all with a different grip. John Updike
Drop Volley Tennis Smash Overhead Different Grip
To be a human being is to be in a state of tension between your appetites and your dreams, and the social realities around you and your obligations to your fellow man. John Updike
Dreams You Man Obligations Human Being State Tension Between Fellow Fellow Man Around Human Being Realities Social Your Your Dreams Appetites
Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right or better. John Updike
Creative Better Cares About Doer Becomes Doing Any Activity Right
The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it lives for ever. John Updike
Innocent Own Innocence Self Knows Tastes Essential Ever Lives
Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home, wondering why the hell you went. John Updike
Life Home You Somewhere Hell Consists Driving Most Returning American Wondering American Life Then Why
Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone. John Updike
Alone Late Dare Writers Go Bloom Decay May Early Incorrigible
Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life. John Updike
Life Religion Nothingness Jobs Enables Get Us Ignore
Billy Collins writes lovely poems. Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides. John Updike
Worlds Others Consistently Besides Some Seem Collins Poems More Writes Gently Were Than Lovely Billy Describe Serious Startling
Bookstores are lonely forts, spilling light onto the sidewalk. They civilize their neighborhoods. John Updike
Light Lonely Sidewalk Bookstores Neighborhoods Spilling Onto
Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five. John Updike
Sports Idiot Become Past Count Frequent How Proven Five Child Just Childlike Golf Inability Us Appeals Players
Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism. John Updike
Naked Barefoot Approaches Mere Revolutionary Going Being
The first breath of adultery is the freest; after it, constraints aping marriage develop. John Updike
Marriage Adultery First Breath Constraints Develop After
Arabic is very twisting, very beautiful. The call to prayer is quite haunting; it almost makes you a believer on the spot. John Updike
Beautiful Prayer You Arabic Haunting Almost Call Spot Makes Very Quite Believer Twisting
I still want to give my public, such as it is, a book a year. John Updike
Book Year Give Still Want Public
When you sit at your desk, if you're lucky, there's a moment when you feel empowered to be someone or something else, to leap into another skin. John Updike
You Sit Skin Else Someone Something Something Else Feel Leap Empowered Another Your Moment Lucky Desk
I'm trying to get the terrorist out of the bugaboo category and into the category of a fellow human being. John Updike
Human Being Out Category Fellow Terrorist Get Trying Human Being
I never really made a choice to live in America, so I should be aware of the social strata outside of the ones that I may live in. John Updike
Made Live Outside Never America May Social Really Choice Should Strata Aware
A person believes various things at various times, even on the same day. John Updike
Day Various Times Person Same Even Believes Things
I picked up 'On Moral Fiction' in the bookstore and looked up myself in the index, but I didn't read it through. I try not to read things that depress me. John Updike
Myself Me Try Bookstore Moral Through Picked Looked Read Up Fiction Depress Things
There's almost nothing worse to live with than a struggling artist. John Updike
Nothing Live Worse Struggling Almost Almost Nothing Than Artist
John Barth, I think, was really a writer of my own age and somewhat of my own temperament, although his books are very different from mine, and he has been a spokesman for the very ambitious, long, rather academic novel. But I don't think that what he is saying, so far as I understand it, is so very different from what I'm saying. John Updike
Saying Age Long Own Think Books Mine Has-Been Temperament John My Own Rather Somewhat Writer He Spokesman Academic Although Understand Been His Ambitious Very Different Far Really Novel
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